After doing his time at Rikers Island, Jayson Williams is now a free man. The Star-Ledger has the details: “Shortly after 9 a.m. today, a New York Correction Department bus stopped in a parking lot off Hazen St. in Queens, just beyond the bridge that leads to Rikers Island. Former Nets star Jayson Williams had been incarcerated on the island since last August, serving eight months of a one-year sentence for driving while intoxicated and 18 months prior to that in a New Jersey prison for his role in the shooting death of driver Costas ‘Gus’ Christofi a decade ago. The bus followed a white Chevrolet Yukon with New Jersey license plates out of the parking lot, onto 19th Ave., then left on to 49th St. It is believed that Williams, 44, then exited the bus and got into the SUV, which sped off. The New York Department of Correction website lists Williams as having been released today. ‘I am eager to see my daughters, my mother and siblings and make amends for what they’ve been through,’ Williams told The Associated Press through his manager. ‘Start my life over with God being first and in the center of everything I do.'”

Jayson Williams, the former NBA star currently serving a one-year DWI bid (he also served 18 months for aggravated assault), is apparently a converted man. Reports the NY Post: “Christopher Hughes, who was incarcerated at Rikers for 100 days with the former New Jersey Net, tells us the baller is beloved by all behind bars with him, from crackheads to gangbangers. ‘People treat him like a star,’ said Hughes, who was released from Rikers last week after serving time for reckless assault. ‘Every single person shakes his hand. He is like Moses, the Moses of Rikers.’ He described how Williams, 43, attends church and leads Bible-study classes every day. ‘Jayson would sign people’s Bibles,’ Hughes told us. ‘I would ask him why, and he’d say, ‘Fake it till you make it.’ I thought he was saying, ‘If I can get them in the door through this signature, then at least I got them in the room to see Christ.’ Williams worked as a suicide-prevention assistant for a week on the midnight shift, to help inmates who were contemplating killing themselves, Hughes told us. Jayson, also a former Philadelphia 76er, who receives ‘tons’ of mail and spends four hours a day writing back, is also penning a second book, ‘Humbled,’ which includes the bombshell that he was sexually abused as a child. ‘It’s raw,’ said Hughes, who read excerpts while in prison.”

The inevitable is now a reality: “Former NBA star Jayson Williams pleaded guilty Monday to fatally shooting his limo driver with a shotgun. Williams’ plea closes the book on a case that took eight years to resolve and brought only a measure of justice that the family of Costas (Gus) Christofi had been seeking. The former New Jersey Nets star faces 18 months in jail in return for pleading guilty to aggravated assault in connection with the 2002 shooting. Williams, 41, was facing retrial for a more serious charge – reckless manslaughter – for accidentally killing the 55-year-old driver at his mansion.”

What’s lower than rock-bottom? Because Jayson has found it (via Tzvi): “Former NBA star Jayson Williams is facing drunk driving charges after an early morning SUV accident on a northbound exit of the FDR Drive in Manhattan, CBS 2 HD has learned. The NYPD said Williams was driving while intoxicated around 3:15 a.m. Tuesday when his black Mercedes-Benz SUV veered off the curved exit at East 20th Street. Williams was in the passenger seat when officers arrived and told them someone else had been driving. But witnesses told police they saw him in the driver’s seat, and officers said no one else was in the car. Williams was taken to Bellevue Hospital with minor injuries.”

Back in April 1998, Tony Gervino predicted the Nets would win a title in 2001. He said a starting rotation of Sam Cassell, Kerry Kittles, Keith Van Horn, Jayson Williams and Kendall Gill would bring home gold. The following season they started off horrendously, and before you knew it, Cassell was replaced with Stephon Marbury and Coach Calipari was fired. Fast-forward three seasons to 2002, when new GM Rod Thorn exiles Marbury and brings in Jason Kidd. All of a sudden, the Nets finish the regular season with a 52-30 record and a trip to the Finals. However, like Indiana and Philly before them, they ran into the Shaq/Kobe Lakers. They were swept in four. Their second attempt the following season ended as the first one had, with a 4-2 Finals loss to the Spurs. Then came Vince Carter and the rest is history. Currently, the Nets are winless. So, relive actual Nets glory and check out Gervino’s “almost” prediction of a ’98 Nets team who had people foaming at the mouth for a championship .–Matt Lawyue

by Tony Gervino

The first time the Nets were ever eliminated from the playoffs, they had the circus to blame. Then called the “Americans,” New Jersey finished the 1967 season with a 36-42 record. That mark tied the Kentucky Colonels for the fourth and final playoff spot. To break the tie, the Americans would host a one-game playoff. The problem was that their home arena, then the Teaneck Armory, was booked. The circus was in town. So owner Arthur Brown scrambled to find another court, eventually deciding on Commack Arena on Long Island. When the teams arrived for the game, they found loose floorboards, unscrewed bolts and unpadded basket stanchions. Kentucky refused to play, and ABA commissioner George Mikan ruled the game a forfeit in favor of the Colonels. New Jersey’s first taste of playoff action ended without so much as a jump ball. —Nets ’97-98 media guide, pg. 89

In life, there are exhilarating high points—and then there are excruciating low points. Losing your first playoff game to the bearded lady and Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy. Low point. Winning the ’76 ABA championship. High point. Selling the Doctor immediately afterward because he wanted a fair wage. Low point. You get the idea.

If you get lucky, the high points greatly outnumber the low ones. The New Jersey Nets franchise has not had such good fortune, and therein lies the basis for this tale of perseverance and eventual redemption. For theirs is a history fraught with poor drafts, poor trades, poor free agent signings, poor coaching and poor play—all the basic food groups necessary for perennial cellar-dwelling and laughingstock emeritus status. The best you could have said about the Nets teams of the past 20 years is that maybe a couple of them in the early-to-mid ’90’s flirted with respectability. The rest sucked.

So then, is it a bit deranged to think the New Jersey Nets will win a title before the 2001-’02 season? Not at all, for the simple reason that the Nets have been compiling a pretty sweet little team while we were busy ignoring them. They got themselves a real coach and some real players who more often than not play real well.

Indeed, savvy trading and drafting from GM John Nash and head coach/executive John Calipari have brought in players such as Sam Cassell, Keith Van Horn, Kerry Kittles, Chris Gatling, Lucious Harris and Michael Cage. Free agent scoop-ups include Sherman Douglas, David Benoit and Xavier McDaniel (because, after all, you never know when you may need to really, really hurt someone).

And in watching them play for half a season, we’ve come to one big, fat conclusion: This is not the same old New Jersey Nets, they of Chris Morris’ untied shoelaces and Derrick Coleman’s whoop-de-damn-do. Of Bill Fitch and his Chibbs vendetta. And Paul Silas’ head coaching snub. Yes, Yinka Dare is still in his usual seat on the bench every game, warm-ups firmly in place, an all-too-well-paid ghost of the Nets’ horrid past. But the days of players who showed up expecting to lose, get paid and go home?

“It ain’t that way no more baby!,” says point guard Sam Cassell. “It ain’t that way no more!”

Sam’s right, this is a whole new team. This is a team that goes for the throat and doesn’t let go. One that refuses to fold in tough situations. One filled with winners like center-in-a-power-forward’s-body Jayson Williams, who was averaging 12.9 ppg and 13.8 rpg in late January. And small forward Kendall Gill, blistered as a malcontent in Seattle and Charlotte, playing out of position yet quietly providing 15.5 ppg, 5.1 rpg and veteran leadership. Don’t forget rookie sensation Van Horn, also playing out of position as a 6-10, 230-pound power forward and dropping 19.9 ppg and 6.1 rpg against bigger, stronger veterans. Or Cassell the well-traveled point guard, who’s averaging 19.6 ppg and 8.0 apg, shooting like his initials were MJ and keeping the team loose. Not to mention second-year two-guard Kittles and his 16.0 ppg and 4.5 rpg. One to five, probably one of the best in the entire NBA, if not the best. And damned if other teams can figure out what to do with ’em.

“Things are different than they used to be,” says Gill. “We’ve got guys flying, dunking the basketball, shooting three pointers, Jayson rebounding like crazy, us running up and down trapping. That’s the kind of basketball you want to see. We play that way, and I know I would want to watch that type of basketball.”

Adds Kittles: “Teams know we can beat them now. Last year, we’d come out and play so hard for three quarters and other teams would be playing lackadaisically. Then in the fourth, the other team would decide to play, and we wouldn’t have anything left. Now teams are playing hard from the beginning.”

Yet on many nights, even that commitment won’t make a difference. On January 23, the Nets record stood at 23-17. Last season, they won 26-all year. And the way they’re winning games is the thing too; they’re coast-to-coasting it on some of the NBA’s elite. They’re making it look easy, and while they’re learning to play together, they’re making it look fun.

So how exactly did this happen?

“There’s two things,” says Calipari. “We have much better talent than we had before. But talent alone won’t win—we’ve got a great locker room. And I’ll go right down the line when I say that. We have a guy like Kendall Gill, who averaged 21 a game last year, who’s willing to average 14 or 15 a game so we win more. Keith Van Horn is as unselfish as a player comes, and these guys have respected him and accepted him quickly because he’s such a good guy. And Kerry Kittles—value-based, he’s one of the great human beings in this world…”

Now might be a good time for you to run and get something to drink. We may be here a while. Coach, please continue:

“…Jayson Williams has accepted playing center and scoring less to help us win. And it goes right down the line. Sherm Douglas, who could start for a lot of teams comes here and is our backup, plays great, then goes in the newspaper and says, ‘I’m a backup, Sam’s the starter’. We just have a great locker room. And I really believe that—when I was in college, I did it this way—that you win with good people. And if you have to sacrifice some talent to make sure you get good guys, you always do it. Those guys will win more than a talented team that doesn’t get along.”

One look at the way this five-headed monster has begun to disassemble opponents will tell you that. They whip the ball around the perimeter until someone’s open—really open—before shooting. They pick each other up on defense (well, they’re getting better at that.) They set picks. They hit their free throws, and even though they’re an undersized lineup, they bang the offensive boards. You step to one of them, you step to all of them. Their closeness, within the realm of basketball and beyond, is a true rarity in professional sports. From one to 12, the squad seems more like brothers than teammates, and their general concern for each other’s well-being gives them carte blanche to climb all over each other when it’s warranted—with no hard feelings.

“It’s a great team to be around,” says Gill. “At practice, on the plane and in the locker room. Everybody gets along, and that’s one of the key components you have to have in order to be a good team. And we have that.”

“Kendall, I need you tomorrow. It’s a very important game. Make sure the guys know that. Let them know how bad we need it.”

Sometimes you just overhear a private conversation. It’s not that you’re eavesdropping or anything. It’s just that, occasionally, you might be minding your own business, you know, just standing around, and you overhear something that you probably weren’t meant to hear. An accident. Oops.

This, however, was not one of those times.

At one end of the practice gym, four of the Nets starting five are getting their photos taken. They’re blowing off a little steam by alternately teasing the injured Cassell for having to drag his ass in on an off-day for a stupid photo shoot (“Don’t go OJ on [the photographers],” Williams warns. Sammy just laughs.) and ripping on Keith Van Horn for….well, for just being Keith Van Horn. (One of Keith’s nicknames is “GC” which stands for, you guessed it, Golden Child.) Across the gym floor, Gill is having a private conversation with Calipari. At least in theory.

It’s 31 hours before the Los Angeles Clippers-the worst, most inept franchise in the history of pro sports-come to town, and Cal knows his team will be beaten. He just knows it, although he’s not saying it aloud. It’s the way it’s been going this season—two steps up, one back. A spirited win at home versus the hated big-brother New York Knicks on January 2nd. And then a one-point loss five days later at the Garden—after running off a 20-0 stretch in the second quarter, then squandering a 15-point second-half lead through an astonishing mix of swagger and carelessness.

And so, while the photographer is selling the Nets players on looking game-ready, Coach Calipari is hoping to sell Gill on his sense of impending doom. The Clips, Coach knows, will be trying to suck his squad down to their level of play, and in the past, that’s been a very short trip for the Nets. Gill nods his head and agrees to talk to the fellas who, about 25 feet away, are busy shooting baskets while the photography equipment sets an immoveable pick.

Whatever KG said, it didn’t take, for the Clippers crawled into the Continental Airlines Arena and took the game to the Nets, clawing their way to a 119-116 win. By halftime, Coach Cal’s face shifted from disgusted to helpless to super-angry and back to disgusted. Afterward, he lit into the team for their lack of defensive intensity and poor shot selection. It was the current Nets at their very worst.

Three nights later, it was a different scene altogether. Against one of the NBA’s elite, the Atlanta Hawks, the Nets ground out a 97-81 win on the defensive end, trapping and double-teaming. And hustling. Jayson Williams scored 15 points and snared 23 rebounds; Van Horn chipped in 23; Kittles, 19; Gill, 18, and Douglas, 17 points and 10 assists.

Most importantly, it sent a message to the Clippers that they have to look elsewhere for bottom-of-the-barrel companionship. “We let the Clippers game slip away,” a relieved Kendall Gill told The New York Post. “We had to send a message we weren’t on their same level.”

And that’s the struggle the ’98 Nets face—trying to minimize their growing pains while salving their impatience and occasional frustration with the knowledge that the race to success in the NBA is a marathon and not a sprint. For the first time in a long time, it feels good to be a Nets player, and it feels good to be a Nets fan. (And not just because of those dope new uniforms.)

Indeed, the days when the Nets were a walkover in the schedule are like the ’98-99 Chicago Bulls—over. And within the next three seasons this nucleus of budding superheroes will continue to grow and mature, and when they add a true center-a real seven-footer- and perhaps another post-up threat, the title will be theirs for the taking. And they will. Take it, that is. And Spike Lee will roll over in his grave, and he’s not even dead.

Here’s the latest from the former New Jersey Net: “Former NBA star Jayson Williams was arrested early Monday after authorities say he punched someone in the face outside a Raleigh nightclub, the latest legal tribulation for the All-Star who has spent years in the courtroom since an injury ended his basketball career. Some type of dispute led Williams, 41, to hit the other person shortly before 2 a.m., Raleigh police said. Williams was charged with one count of simple assault and released on $1,000 bond.”

Terrible news in the troubled life of the former Nets forward: “Former Nets superstar Jayson Williams was taken to a Manhattan hospital for a psychological evaluation early today after he barricaded himself inside a hotel room and was acting “suicidal” and “violent,” authorities told The Post. Williams, 41, was removed from his room at a Manhattan hotel at 4 a.m., police sources said. Once inside the hotel, the officers confronted what sources described to The Post as ‘a suicidal man’ who was acting ‘violent.’

“The cops called an Emergency Services Unit for help since Williams had trashed his room. Once there, sources said, the officers used “an electrical device” to subdue Williams, who was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital for a psychological evaluation”

The 6th Man: The press release, brief and to the point, was faxed to me at 4:15 a.m. on February 5, ’98. It had no cover page and appeared to have been typed on a children’s typewriter. It read as follows:

“Nike endorser Li’l Penny, of Wake Forest, the Antananarius Lemurs (Madagascar League) and the Chicago Pro-Am, has written a lengthy manifesto concerning the abrupt cancellation of the NBA Dunk contest. He requests that any magazine which prints his comments do so in their entirety and without editing. (He spelled-checked the thing twice.)

“If you would like to join in the protest, Li’l Penny will be holding a rally on the steps of Madison Square Garden in NYC, site of the 1998 All-Star weekend, on Friday, February 6th at 3 p.m., in hopes of galvanizing public opinion. Please make signs and come ready to yell. He also asks that someone please bring him some peppermint Mentos and a grape soda. Thank you.”

I was speechless. I had just seen LP in Barbados not 10 days earlier, and he hadn’t said word one about any protest. Of course, by then he was on the final leg of his six-week quest to find the world’s dopest black sand beach. As a matter of fact, he was telling everyone by the hot tub about how his inclusion in the NBA Dunk Contest meant that, finally, as he put it, “the funk will be back in the dunk contest. It’s like that.” He had no idea whatsoever about 2ball.

Now, I’m not much for protests. The only time I’ve ever protested something in my life—true story—was when my high-school principal Mr. DiPalermo tried to ban concert t-shirts. (Hey, it was a major deal at the time.) I didn’t get him fired, and I suspected that I’d have similar trouble convincing NBA Commissioner David Stern to reinstate the dunk contest so that L’il Penny could show off his 118-inch vertical.

So instead of participating in the protest, I decided to watch it from across the street and bring along a photographer to chronicle LP’s lonely plight.

Well, seeing as there was no dunk contest at this season’s All-Star game, you can pretty much guess how the protest went. But, since we go so far back, I decided to print LP’s lengthy manifesto anyway, in hopes that by this time next year, we’ll be talking about how Vince Carter really turned it out at the ’99 NBA Dunk Contest.